True Confessions of Adrian Albert Mole (3 page)

The Hoi Polloi Reception

BY A. MOLE

The food stood on the table

The drink stood on the bar

The crisps lay in the glass dish

‘Twixt the gherkins in the jar.

The poets were expected

The artists had sent word

The pianists and flautists

Were bringing lemon curd.

The novelists were travelling

From dim and distant lands

The journalists were trekking

O’er deep and shifting sands.

The hoi polloi stood standing

Outside the party room

Which glowed with invitation

Like a twenty-year-old womb.

Yet they dared not cross the portal

To taste the waiting feast

For fear of what would happen

If they dared to cross the beast.

The hoi polloi grew weary

And sat upon the floor

And told each other stories

Until the clock struck four.

They drew each other pictures

One person sang a song

But was careful at the end

To say ‘Of course
they
won’t be long.’

The artists and the poets

And the people who write books

The musicians and the journalists

And the Nouvelle Cuisine cooks

Sent word they couldn’t make it

They couldn’t leave the town.

They were meeting VIPs for drinks

And couldn’t make it down.

The gherkins went untasted

The crisps were never crunched

The Chablis kept its cork in

The Twiglets went unmunched

But still the people waited

For a hundred million days

And just to help to pass the time

They wrote and acted plays.

They carved a pretty pattern

On the panel of the door.

They painted lovely pictures on the

Coldly concrete floor

They sang in pretty harmony

About the epic wait.

Then hush!…Was that a car we heard

Was that a creaking gate?

It’s the sculptors on the gravel

It’s the poets wild-eyed

Quick open wide the door to

Let the journalists inside.

Oh welcome to our party!

We thought you’d never come

So sad we ate the food though

We haven’t left a crumb!

For in the time of waiting

The hoi polloi grew brave

They went into the room

And took the things they craved.

And the poets and the sculptors

And the artists and the cooks

And the women good at music

And the men who wrote the books

And the journalists and actors

And the people trained to sing

Stood waiting ever after for the party to begin.

A Mole in Moscow

September 1985

Woke up at 6am in the morning. Got out of bed carefully because the dog was spread-eagled across the bed, flat on its back, with its legs in the air. At first I thought it was dead, but I checked its pulse and found signs of life, so I just slid out from underneath its warm fur. The dog’s dead old now and needs its sleep.

After measuring my chest and shoulders I had a thorough wash in cold water. I read somewhere (I think it was one of Mr Paul Johnson’s articles) that ‘cold water makes a man of you’. I’ve been a bit worried about my maleness lately, somewhere along the line I seem to have picked up too many female hormones.

I’ve been to see the doctor about it, but as usual he was most unsympathetic. I asked if I could have some of my female hormones taken out. Dr Grey laughed a horrible, bitter laugh and gave his usual advice, which was to go out and have my head kicked about in a rugby scrum. As I was leaving his surgery he said, “And I don’t want to see you back here for at least two months.” I asked, “Even if I’m taken seriously ill?” He muttered, “
Especially
if you’re taken seriously ill.” I’m considering reporting him to his superiors; all this worry has affected my poetry output. I used to be able to turn out at least four poems an hour, but now I’m down to three a week. If I’m not careful I’ll dry up altogether.

In my desperation I went to the Lake District on the train. I was struck down by the beauty of the place, although saddened to find that there were no daffodils flashing in my outer eye as in William Wordsworth the old Lake poet. I asked an ancient country yokel why there were no daffodils about. He said, “It’s July, lad.” I repeated loudly and clearly (because he was obviously a halfwit), “Yes I know that, but why are there no
daffodils
about?”

“It’s July,” he roared. At that point I left the poor deranged soul. It’s sad that nothing can be done for such pathetic geriatric cases. I blame the government. Since they put rat poison in the water supply most of the adult population have gone barmy.

I sat on a rock that Wordsworth once sat on and thrilled to think that where my denim was now was where his moleskin used to be. A yob had scrawled on the rock, “What’s wiv this Wordsworth?” Another, more cultivated hand, had written underneath: “You mindless vandal, how dare you bespoil this precious rock which has been here for millions of years. If you were here I’d flog you to within an inch of your life. Signed, A. Geologist.” Somebody else had written underneath, “Flog
me
instead. Signed, A. Masochist.” After eating my tuna-fish sandwiches and drinking my low calorie orange drink, I walked around the lake trying to feel inspired, but by tea-time nothing had happened so I put my pen and exercise book back into my carrier-bag and hurried back to the station to catch the train back to the Midlands.

It was just my luck to have to share a compartment with hyperactive two-year-old twins and their worn-out mother. When the twins weren’t having spectacular tantrums on the floor they were both standing six inches away from me,
staring
at me with unblinking evil eyes. It used to be my ambition to have a farmhouse full of Hovis-like children. I would imagine looking out of my study window to see them all frolicking amongst the combine harvesters. With Pandora, their mother, saying, “Shush!…Daddy is working,” whereupon the children would blow me kisses with their podgy fingers and run into the stone-flagged kitchen to eat the cakes that Pandora had just taken from the oven. However, since my experience with the mad twins I have decided
not
to spread my seed. Indeed I may ask my parents if I can have a vasectomy for my eighteenth birthday.

When I got home I hurried round to Pandora’s house to tell her about this change in my future plans. Pandora said, “
Au contraire, chéri
, should we still be having a long-term relationship, I should like to have one child when I am forty-six years of age. The child will be a girl. She will be beautiful and immensely gifted. Her name will be Liberty.” I said, “But do women’s reproductive organs still reproduce at the age of forty-six?” Pandora said, “
Mais naturellement, chéri
, and anyway there is always the test tube option.”

Mr Braithwaite came into the room and said, “Pandora, make your mind up. Are you going to Russia or are you not?” Pandora said, “Not. I can’t leave the cat.” They then had a furious row. I could hardly believe my ears. Pandora was turning down a week in Russia with her father just because her stinking old moggy was about to give birth for the fourth time! During a pause in the argument I said, “I would give my right leg to go to the country of Dostoevsky’s birth.”

However, Mr Braithwaite didn’t respond with an invitation for me to accompany him. How mean can you get? The Co-op Dairy had given him two tickets to go on a fact-finding tour of milk distribution in Moscow. (Mrs Braithwaite had refused to go because she’d recently joined the SDP.) So a ticket was going spare. Yet the tight git was denying me the glorious opportunity of studying revolution in the raw. When Mr Braithwaite had gone into the garden to savagely mow the lawn Pandora said, “You
shall
go to Russia.” She worked on her father for a whole week. She refused to eat, she played her stereo at full decibels. She invited her ‘Hell’s Angels’ friends for tea every day. Her punk friends came to supper and I had breakfast with the family most mornings. By the end of the week Mr Braithwaite was a broken man and Mrs Braithwaite was begging him to take me behind the Iron Curtain. Eventually, after Pandora held an open air reggae concert on the back lawn, Mr Braithwaite relented.

He came to our house at 11 o’clock one Sunday morning, so I got my parents out of bed and we had a meeting at our kitchen table. They enthusiastically agreed to me going to Russia for a week. My mother said, “Great, George, we could have a second honeymoon while Adrian’s away!” My father said, “Yeah, Mum’ll look after the baby. We can rediscover ourselves, eh, Pauline?” They slopped over each other for a bit and then turned their attention back to the proceedings for, knowing that I was a virgin traveller, Mr Braithwaite had brought a passport form with him and I filled it in carefully under his supervision. I only made one mistake. Where it said ‘sex’ I put ‘not yet’, instead of putting ‘male’.

We turned the house upside down looking for my birth certificate before my mother remembered that it was framed and hanging on Grandma’s front room wall. My father was sent round to fetch it while Mr Braithwaite took me to have my passport photographs taken in a slot machine. On the way, in the car, I practised facial expressions. I wanted my photographs to show the
real
Adrian Mole. Warm and clever, yet enigmatic and with just a hint of sensuousness. In the event, the photographs were disappointing. I looked like a spotty youth with just a hint of derangement in my sticking-out eyes. After everyone, apart from me, had had a good laugh at the photographs my mother reluctantly wrote a cheque out for fifteen pounds and then the documents were checked and double-checked by Mr Braithwaite before being put into a large envelope. While he did this I examined him carefully, for he was to be my travelling companion and room mate for a week. Would I be able to stand the shame of being seen in the company of a man wearing flared trousers and a paisley patterned waistcoat? Too late! The die was cast! Fate had thrown us together!

As he left, clutching my documentation, he said: “Adrian, during the week we are in Moscow do you promise, swear, give me your word, that you will not utter
one
word about the Norwegian leather industry?” Astonished I said, “Of course. If, for some reason, you find my mini-lectures on the Norwegian leather industry
offensive
, then of course I won’t mention it.” Mr Braithwaite said, “Oh I don’t find your constant monologues on the Norwegian leather industry
offensive
, just deeply, deeply boring.” Then he got into his car and went to put the documents through the door of the Passport Office.

If this was a film, then leaves would blow across the screen and pages of diaries would riffle, trains would roar and calendars would have months torn from them by unseen hands. But as this is just me speaking then all I need to tell you is that time went by, and I got my passport and my visa by second-class post. In the days before I left England for Russia I also got advice. My grandma said, “If the Russians offer to show you the salt mines refuse and ask to be shown a shoe factory instead.” My mother advised me
not
to mention that at the age of fourteen she had been thrown out of the Young Communist League (Norwich Branch) for fraternizing with American soldiers. Pandora advised against buying her a light amber necklace saying she preferred the
dark
amber, and Mr O’Leary from over the road advised me not to go at all. He said, “The Russians are godless heathens, Adrian.” Mrs O’Leary said, “Yes, and so are you, Declan, you haven’t been to Mass for over two years.”

The worst part of the journey to Russia was the MI motorway. Mr Braithwaite’s Volvo was almost sucked under the passing lorries several times. In fact at Watford Gap Mr Braithwaite lost his nerve and the capable hands of Mrs Braithwaite took the wheel. It was the first time I had flown in a plane so I was expecting sympathy and a bit of cherishing from the air stewardesses who stood by the plane door. I said: “This is the first time I’ve flown, I may need extra attention during the flight.” The woman said in broken English, “Well you won’t get it from me, Englishman. I will be too busy flying the plane.” Mr Braithwaite went pale when I told him that the pilot was a woman. Then he remembered that he was an avowed feminist and said, “Jolly good.” Apart from my putting my seat belt around my neck, the flight was uneventful. The passengers concentrated on hiding or eating the garlic sausage and cream crackers they were served for lunch; but they warmed up a bit when the vodka came round, and by the time we landed at the airport just outside Moscow some of them were disgustingly drunk and were not good examples of Western Capitalist Society.